Increasingly, society faces a solid waste management crisis. As the solid waste produced by a consumption-oriented society continues to increase, acceptable solid waste landfill disposal sites are increasingly difficult to identify. Noxious gases produce by decomposition of organic matter in solid waste landfills contribute strongly to the environmental unacceptability of landfills. In addition, flammable noxious gases which are not efficiently extracted from landfills constitute a wasted energy resource.
Centrifugal blowers which may be used to pressurize gas, such as methane gas originating from decomposition of organic material in landfills, and for moving the gas through a pipe line system, are known in the art. However, presently available blowers frequently do not have long service lives and are generally difficult to service in the field. Further, servicing presently available blowers frequently requires significant disruption of the pipe line system in which the blower is installed. Often such blowers must be removed and transported with difficulty to a remotely located repair facility.
Frequently, presently available blowers are heavy units which consume substantial amounts of energy in exhausting gases and provide relatively low inlet vacuum. These blowers are generally constructed and arranged so that they develop considerable unbalanced thrust forces relative to the shaft of the blower, ultimately resulting in bearing wear and possible failure.
In addition, prior art blowers are often subject to catastropic failure when the fluid drawn into the blower includes liquids, or gases which are readily condensible in elevated pressure regions of the blower. Prior art blowers are often especially adapted for use in exhausting specific gases within narrow flow rate ranges and thus are relatively non-versatile.
There is a need for an efficient system for removing waste gases generated by landfill sites in general. More specifically, there is a need for a gas blower to drive such gas removal systems which is energy efficient, compact, versatile and designed to require little maintenance, and which is relatively easy to service in the field.
The present invention meets these needs and is particularly adapted for use in extracting and pressurizing gas so that it can be moved through a pipe line system at relatively high flow rates. Further, the present invention provides additional advantages which are described below.